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Any cover that is just a fractal that is mirrored to make it symmetric. That was okay up until around 2005, but it looks so utterly lazy these days. It's a generic cover and my brain associates it with generic music before I even hear the first track. Producers spend so much time perfecting their tracks - is it asking so much to spend more than an hour on the cover?

Maybe we should have a companion thread to this to discuss amazing cover art!

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that asia2001 cover was really funny. looks like someone with no computer graphics experience at all had a deadline; panicked, and desperately tought himeself how to do it via Altavista in 2 hours; then used the last 2 hours of the deadline to actually produce it

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that asia2001 cover was really funny. looks like someone with no computer graphics experience at all had a deadline; panicked, and desperately tought himeself how to do it via Altavista in 2 hours; then used the last 2 hours of the deadline to actually produce it

have actually always liked that cover but back in 1996 it looked pretty cool
in fact if some of you lot commenting wern't activley listening to goa back in the 90's you prob shouldn't judge, technology was alot different back then
and remember goa was very underground

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have actually always liked that cover but back in 1996 it looked pretty cool
in fact if some of you lot commenting wern't activley listening to goa back in the 90's you prob shouldn't judge, technology was alot different back then
and remember goa was very underground

You almost sound insulted lol

And for reference, im 37 and bought the first goa cd in 95, am I allowed to comment sir? And it wasn't really underground where I come from (Malmö) in fact it was pretty much mainstream from 96 and onward, until about 2001-2003 when it died out in favor for progressive psy

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I think the Asia 2001 cover is great, even today! It stands out with the pink blue yellow and has some fractals and Om stuff. Whats not to like?

On the other hand, I'm with technosomy: what is up with Miranda - Phenomena cover? Originally I was going to say that it's just nothing.. but the more I look at it, the more I see; like a Rorschach. Strangely all I can see now is the inside of blood-soaked tent and I'm trying hard not to disappear down a Lake Bodom rabbithole...

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Savage thread roflmao One thing to have in mind though, besides those covers that are simply lazy/poorly made. Some stuff was cutting edge back then, simply because 3D graphics was not very advanced at the time. You see this across different mediums. Not just in cover art for goa trance.

Think about it, one common thing some of you mention is that some of the art is ps1 levels. Well ps1 was cutting edge, and had the very best 3D animators of its era working on the games. 3D-rendering in particular was and still is a very time consuming and CPU-intensive process. And the home computers at the time were not particulary strong.

So in the best scenarios it was someone who worked at an advertising agency with access to the best stuff of the era who did the artwork. Same goes for the early rave flyers. So besides some of the more hideous looking stuff, I would say for example that Infected Mushroom-Classical Mushroom had a really impressive cover to me back then. And probably to a lot of other people as well. It was actually above average. And if you think about it, it’s not worse than for example the CGI used in the music video to Eiffel 65-Blue (Da Ba Dee).

But yes it has not aged well, but looking through the prism of the era it’s forgiveable. It really went well with the theme of the album. The handdrawn style on The Gathering cover art has aged better due to handdrawn artwork beeing a more timeless technique.

And yes I agree let’s make a sister thread for the best cover art, or dig up some old thread which fits the bill.